Like Rembrandt and Goya, Vincent van Gogh often used himself as a model; he produced over forty-three self-portraits, paintings or drawings in ten years.
In this head-and-shoulders view, the artist is wearing a suit and not the pea jacket he usually worked in. Attention is focused on the face. His features are hard and emaciated, his green-rimmed eyes seem intransigent and anxious. The dominant colour, a mix of absinth green and pale turquoise finds a counterpoint in its complementary colour, the fiery orange of the beard and hair. The model's immobility contrasts with the undulating hair and beard, echoed and amplified in the hallucinatory arabesques of the background.
Van Gogh Jewels, a capsule line created on the occasion of the exhibition "Van Gogh in Auvers-sur-Oise, the final months" from October 3, 2023 to February 4, 2024, at the Musée d'Orsay, is freely inspired by the Portrait of the Artist, 1899 by Vincent van Gogh (1853 - 1890), a remarkable masterpiece kept at the Musée d'Orsay.
Their flamed form and the colours of the gradient blues find an amplified echo in the hallucinatory arabesques of the vibrant background of this self-portrait.
